Theresa May confirms visit to China to steady relations
August 16, 2016 12:21 pm
Theresa May confirms visit to China to steady relations
Henry Mance, Political correspondent
Theresa May has confirmed that she will travel to China next month to steady relations with Beijing and to press for stronger trading relations.
In a letter to Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, and Li Keqiang, the premier, Mrs May said she supported the hosting of the Group of 20 leaders’ summit in Hangzhou, and wanted to build stronger trade relationship.
Alok Sharma, the Foreign Office minister who is on a visit to China, called the bilateral relationship “strong, growing and delivering benefits for both our countries”.
British-Chinese relations, warm under David Cameron and George Osborne, have been thrown into doubt since Mrs May’s appointment as prime minister last month.
Mrs May’s decision to review the £18bn project to build a nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point, with Chinese investment, led China’s ambassador to the UK to say the relationship was “at a crucial historical juncture”. The UK government, he added, should “come to a decision as soon as possible so that the project can proceed smoothly”.
Some of Mrs May’s advisers have aired security concerns over China’s involvement in the project, Malcolm Rifkind, the former foreign secretary who was critical of a deal to allow Huawei, the Chinese telecoms company, to provide equipment for an upgrade of the national telecoms network, warned on Tuesday that Beijing could turn off the plant in any dispute with the UK.
Nick Timothy, Mrs May’s joint chief of staff, has written that Chinese investment was buying “British silence on human rights abuses” and that “rational concerns about national security” were being “swept to one side”.
But the China Britain Business Council said British companies should not be deterred from doing business in China, which was a “huge potential market for UK companies as well as a source for much needed investment”.
The G20 summit takes place on September 4 and 5; Mrs May has promised to announce a decision on Hinkley Point in September. Downing Street said Mrs May’s letter, which was first reported by Bloomberg, was private correspondence and would not be published.
That £6bn commitment was a large proportion of the investment announced during Mr Xi’s visit last year. In total the British government heralded £40bn of Chinese investment pledges, although that figure appeared to include extra investment by France’s EDF in Hinkley Point as well as other questionable assumptions. On a stricter interpretation only £18bn of deals were announced.
The uncertainty over Hinkley Point may make it harder for the UK to raise any concerns with the Chinese government. “They certainly won’t take any lectures from the British on Hong Kong in the current climate,” said Kerry Brown, an associate fellow at Chatham House.
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